ARTICLES ABOUT BILLIONAIRE BY DATE - PAGE 4

* Company spent $2 billion on share buybacks in three years * Says could spend another $1.5 billion until 2017 * Scale of spending shows major rebalancing of ownership By Dmitry Zhdannikov LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Commodity trading giant Trafigura is going through a once-in-a-generation ownership reshuffle, spending billions of dollars to buy out its earliest shareholders and allocating stock to a new generation of would-be billionaire traders. A Reuters analysis of accounts for Swiss-based Trafigura shows it has spent around $2 billion on share buybacks over the past three years, and the unlisted company says it could spend another $1.5 billion until 2017 if profits allow.

(Reuters) - Billionaire Harold Simmons, one of the richest men in America and a major contributor to the Republican Party, has died in his native Texas at 82. The death, confirmed in a statement by Texas Governor Rick Perry, was first reported on the website of the Dallas Morning News which said he died on Saturday at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. His wife, Annette, told the newspaper Simmons had been "very sick for the last two weeks," and in Baylor's intensive care unit for the last eight days.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Debt-ridden Valencia have an offer on the table from Singapore billionaire Peter Lim to pump money into the club with a view to becoming one of the top sides in Europe. Club president Amadeo Salvo has been searching for investors with Spanish banking conglomerate Bankia, which is owed 300 million euros (250 million pounds) by Valencia, having pushed for the club to be put up for sale as they consider the debt to be unsurmountable. Valencia have been forced to off-load leading players including David Villa, Jordi Alba and David Silva in recent seasons to raise capital while they also have a half-completed stadium.

LONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz and three others working with the mining arm of his business empire, BSG Resources, have sued campaign group Global Witness, claiming damages for what they say are breaches of their human and data protection rights. BSG Resources (BSGR) is battling for the right to develop half of the Simandou deposit in Guinea, one of the world's largest untapped iron ore resources. The government of Guinea, which is running a review of mining contracts allocated by previous administrations, says BSGR bribed officials to win a 2008 licence to develop the promising deposit.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said on Wednesday that he has filed a shareholder proposal with Apple for a much smaller stock buyback plan than he has advocated previously, as he continued to pressure Apple to share more of its cash pile. "Gave $AAPL notice we'll be making a precatory proposal to call for vote to increase buyback program, although not at $150 billion level," Icahn said in a tweet. CNBC said Icahn's plan calls for a $50 billion buyback program.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that Texas billionaire Billy Joe "Red" McCombs must pay steep penalties to the Internal Revenue Service related to more than $45 million he tried to shield from taxes. The decision could lead to the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and interest that the government has alleged other taxpayers owe in disputes similar to the McCombs case. McCombs, former owner of the Minnesota Vikings football team, and his business partner Gary Woods in 1999 set up a partnership to run a tax shelter known as a "current options bring reward alternatives," or COBRA.

TBILISI (Reuters) - A little-known ally of billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili won a landslide victory in Georgia's presidential election on Sunday, cementing the ruling coalition's grip on power after Mikheil Saakashvili's 10-year rule. Georgy Margvelashvili's triumph concentrates power and will make policy-making easier in the former Soviet republic because Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition now controls both the presidency and the government for the first time. Exit polls showed the margin of victory was so large that the candidate from Saakashvili's party, David Bakradze, conceded victory to Margvelashvili even before the official count began.